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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25971223">He's a lucky man indeed!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somecallmemichelle/pseuds/Somecallmemichelle'>Somecallmemichelle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>30 something year old Draco, Adult Hermione, Aged-Up Characters, Comfort, Draco has demons, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Guilt, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda Fluffy, Nighmares, Short &amp; Sweet, Sweet, dramione - Freeform, sweaty nights</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:09:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,981</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25971223</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somecallmemichelle/pseuds/Somecallmemichelle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy has been having nightmares, faced with overwhelming guilt over what his actions in the past meant and did he constantly wakes up in a cold sweat. Good thing he has his girlfriend, Hermione Granger, there to comfort him. Draco can't help but think that he's very much a lucky man.</p><p>Even while fighting - or at least arguing Draco can't keep his eyes out of her. How could he ever be mad?</p><p>(Short/sweet kinda hurt/comfort - testing the waters on the ship)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>He's a lucky man indeed!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwi05622/gifts">kiwi05622</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her lips thinned out, a shadow of a smile gone, just like that, an instance, literally the time it would take him to cast a non verbal spell or perhaps even less and the amused look on her face was replaced with one of pointed frustration. It was a look that Draco had seen on her face often, and it was one that still, all those years later made him feel guilty. She shouldn't have to be made to feel that way, she shouldn't have resignation in her eyes, and her smile should not die out just like that. The look that passed through her face, the one that painted her every feature was enough to make him gulp.</p><p>The arms folded halfway, almost crossed was truth be told overkill. Draco did not need  to look at her entire body, a body he had admired an entire adult life, to know the truth, a simple, half hearted glance at her face was enough to know the truth. <em>She was pissed</em>.</p><p>Draco had faced challenges that would make most men tremble and he was no exception, he had seen death, he had seen carnage and he had had to confront his inner demons - sometimes he still woke up, screaming in the darkness, half convinced that he was sixteen again and had an impossible task to fulfill. It mattered not that he had succeeded eventually, it mattered even less that he would have very much liked to not have succeeded. that his wand arm had dropped half an inch, being back in Hogwarts and having a deadline over him - always closer, always looming - made him feel small. Small, scared and so, so angry.</p><p>Of course those screams only lasted until Herminoe put a hand to his back. It was the soft touch, filled with tenderness he was used to from his mother and yet his mother had never seen him in such a way. Bare chested - the lightest fluff of golden hair in his chest, a light trail leading to his pride, his back sweaty Hermione at looked at parts of him that no other witch - with the exception of a girl he had once thought to love - had ever seen. Sixteen year old Draco would have claimed otherwise, of course, obsessed as he was with pride, his image the most important thing he could conceive. Oh teenage Draco had had lots of bravado, and if one were to believe his words he had the experience and way with women no man - not even the man Harry called his godfather and that Snape so loathed had.</p><p>But then with a single touch, the back of her hand feeling the sweat of his back, a <em>Lumos</em> illuminating the dark room and an understanding smile  and he was no longer the boy he had been, and if having his life in danger, and not being so misguided as to hate based on words he had heard his entire life - It was Hermione's presence he was most grateful for.</p><p>It should have been impossible, impossible given what terrors he had faced - A Dementor would have plenty to hit him over the head with - but her mere presence was like a well placed Patronus to any of the terrors that took him in the dead of the night. Some wounds, Madam Pomfrey had said to him once when he had been poorly attempting to gather information about poisons in his sixth  year, there were some wounds that even magic could not fix.  </p><p>Draco had always felt that he could relate, he had always believed, from the moment Dumbledore had first shown him mercy, himself to be broken. A dumb, sad little thing, he had thought himself a coward - the truth was that he had thought himself something worse than a coward - he had thought himself a traitor.</p><p>Had he known? All those times he had a chance to act or better yet not to act,  had he known the truth and thought of the consequences? Could he get away with calling himself mistaken when he had been so much worse? Draco hadn't had answers - sometimes he still didn't. At his darkest times Draco feared that he was not worthy of the forgiveness so many had shown him. He was certainly *less worthy* of the love Hermione had found in him.</p><p>And yet, everytime she caused those doubts to simmer away, hiding in the shadow where they should. It made sense after all no? She was *Hermione Jean Granger*, and when had he ever known Hermione of all people to be wrong? Even in school, when he considered her nothing more than an annoying little know it all all the while strange feelings nagged at his belly and strange desires fought in his head for space, as he pushed to push them away, leaving no room for them,  he had known.,</p><p>Really Draco was no stranger to dark magic, it wasn't something to be mentioned in good company but he was a Malfoy and he had been privy to it and its effects from a very young age. Perhaps it had been innapropriate - hell he was fairly sure it had been - perhaps it had influenced him, almost sort of indoctrinated him to a path he should not have followed but then his familiarity with dark magic had taught him one or two things.</p><p>Hell, who was he kidding? It had taught him far more than one or two things, and many of the things he had learned he would have rather forget but what he had learned, even if it was just one thing across many was that many dark curses had no counter. Some types of magic were so perverse, they went so much against the natural order of things that there was no way to combat them.</p><p>It was something that crossed Draco's mind because he had always privately thought  that the thoughts that haunted him, the pings of the past that came to him like he was dunked in a nighmarish pensieve, justified as they might be by how awful his actions had been would never go away. He had to live with it, as he had to live with the branded mark on his forearm (though it had grown paler in all those years)</p><p>Hermione however seemed to defy all manner of logic and allowed him some peace from it. It was weird, because Hermione was nothing if not logical so by all means it should not make sense but Hermione's presence helped him focus. It didn't clear him of his guilt, but a hand tracing his back, a smile he could see while she assured him it'd be ok and he was reminded that he had changed. It was more than that he had changed, he'd improved himself. Hermione only had to touch him for his heart to beat hard yes, but to beat hard and fast for completely different reasons that the sheer terror, guilt and feelings that his trek back to the past led him to. No longer just a jailed bird, in a cage of his own doing, Hermione's touch assured him of something, something crucial and obvious.</p><p>He was free...</p><p>What he was free of exactly wasn't clear to him nor to anyone he knew. He supposed he should be grateful not to be in shackles, should be grateful not to be in Azkaban. No, the only thing that seemed to drag him down were his memories and the sense of guilt that, even if fully deserved, even if he fully knew himself to have been in the wrong still dragged him down.</p><p>Such was life however in that there were no time turners just ready to erase any of the mistakes he had made - it would be easy, so so easy for him to dismiss them - careless mistakes of youth, things he had held no control over - but he could not just do that, the truth was that maybe he didn't want to do that.</p><p>One look, that was all it took, one look at the woman he shared his bed with, one look at the woman who had shown him kindness and undestanding where no other had ever and he knew he couldn't drop it. How could he have ever thought her below him? How could he think himself superior? She breathed, he had smelled her sweet mint like breath enough to know that and she was warm - blood flowed through her vein and everytime he touched her skin - careful, passionate - treating her like a delicate thing worth protecting -  He could feel it.</p><p>What was there to say? That one look and Hermione took him for a spin, Draco had had his world shaken up quite a fair bit - everyone his age had as war had a funny way to make that an universal truth - but the way she held him in high regard -</p><p>Really that was what pushed Draco to try and be better, to improve himself. That Hermione had given him a second, third, or, to be honest fiftieth chance was something he was grateful but the way she expected him to be better, to not only but to think and push himself towards a less dickish version of himself -</p><p>Well Draco had been dickish for a whole long time. It wasn't that he didn't know he could be something else, he knew, clearly it was an abstract concept but he knew that it was possible,  just like it was possible for him to be friends with *Potter* of all people. Really when he had magic at his disposal (not to mention the very big Malfoy coffers) very little was not , but after all the words he had ever thrown her ways, not to mentino what he had nearly done to Katie and the hexes he had thrown at her best friend that she would still believe him - That she would still think he had good in him was heartwarmnig.</p><p> Draco was a snake, he had no doubt that the sorting hat had put him him in the correct place. He could be cold, calculated, even cruel but the truth was that even though snakes were cold hearted, Hermione had managed to warm his heart right up. How could she have not?</p><p>Which was why seeing her looking at her not with a warm, kind look but one that told him she was cross with him hit him so hard. Like a gut punch, like he had taken a knee to his kidneys. Really Draco hadn't seen her so mad since she had punched him - or maybe it had been a slap? Draco wasn't sure what he was sure was that it had hurt. Really damn near 20 years later and he could still feel the sting if he thought about it</p><p>It wasn't fear of retaliation that got him to act however. Draco had lived through threats of violence and torture, Hermione too had felt it in the flesh. None of them had wanted their relationship to be based on such things. Really Draco based his actions in how he saw his father act. Cold, aloof, yes, but never harsh towards  his own wife. Narcissa had been his world and even under duress, and even while Voldemort took his home, wand and pride he had protected her.</p><p>He shivered, *the dark lord*, he hadn't thought of him outside of those nights in a bit and as always a cold chill ran up his spine as he remembered his cruel ways.</p><p>Hermione however wasn't cruel, and even as she looked upset, he knew her incapable of harming him. It wasn't just taking it for granted, it wasn't thinking less of her for it but it was something he had often felt he didn't have in anyone...Trust.</p><p>Really when he made companions out of the likes of Crabe, Goyle and that sort of lot with more brawn than brain he couldn't really be blamed for not instiling much in the way of trust in them. Hermione was different.</p><p>Hermione who despite all her adventures had more sense than most, Hermione whose brain was filled with facts and Hermione who had not been afraid of telling him to do and be better.</p><p>What was there not to love? What kind of man - even so one madly in love - would he be if he did not attempt to understand the reason for her frustration? Why her lips thinned and why she looked ready to growl at him?</p><p>"What?",  he said and though he said it casually, with the half shrugged of someone who had no idea what they did wrong and wanted to appear not to care he couldn't quite maintain the cold facade. Pretty boy Draco, once so cool and at ease, he could no longer play the part of the arrogant fool. The truth was he cared, he cared more than he'd like to admit about what Hermione thought and why she was hurt.</p><p>Draco knew she had to be hurt, she had often been so kind - so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that in order for her to act in such a manner, in order to let her frustration build up like that, to the point it showed something must be really nagging at her insides - and not in the fun way he had often -</p><p>A blush would not be appropriate and so he quickly diverted his thoughts back. Whatever the case Draco knew how Hermione often treated being upset - how she would put her nose in a book and ignore any attempts to talk. That she would act so visibly frustrated, that she would bring it up -</p><p>Had he really been so blind as to not see it?</p><p>"Oh!" , Hermione moved her hands in a visible display of her annoyance. She didn't raise her voice but the way her nostrils flared she was visibly upset. "Like you don't know"</p><p>"I don't",  a show of innocence and confusion made its way into his face as he considered and pondered over what all he had done in the past few days. What had gotten her so riled up? What could it have possibly made it so she was angry at him?</p><p>She must have considered her raised eyebrow, she must have seen the way his eyebrow furrowed in confusion as he tried to think of what he had done.</p><p>"You forgot didn't you?"</p><p>He considered her for a moment. What had he forgotten? What was it that he had not remembered to do? He had been so taken in by his projects - projects that now seemed insignificant compared to the look she was giving him that he hadn't thought of much else.</p><p>"..."</p><p>"You're unbelievable! What am I going to do with you?", Hermione raised her arms high up in the air, almost as if ready to strangle him before she cracked up a smile of her own. "How could you forget, I mean, it's not a me thing...", the way she smiled told him she found it funny but Draco was still drawing a blank, although seeing her smile relaxed him a bit his mind was still in overdrive, too tense to think of what had properly happened or what he was supposed to remember.</p><p>"I mean just look at you..."</p><p><br/>Silence followed as Hermione expected him to recall what it was that he had forgotten, and as Draco rattled his brain trying to think of what he had been supposed to do.</p><p>What exactly about his appearance - casual, just a light polo and some sort of trousers Hermione had told him were called "jeans", and which felt oddly comfortable for his day off - compared to robes at least - had caused her to be upset? What...</p><p>Realisation dawned on him at once...</p><p><br/>"SHIT!", Draco had been taught that such crude words were the mark of an inferior brain, used by muggle borns and few others. He had been taught better than that, but the word slipped out of his lips naturally even so. "We were supposed to be having lunch with my mother!"</p><p>Hermione looked at him like he was dumb,  if one could look at her face they would see the message it painted clearly a , "no shit". Draco looked at the enchanted clock by his side - a very unusual model, where it should have told the orders it instead read only "YOU'RE LATE".</p><p>Draco rattled his brains, with a quick change and a apparition to the gates not all was lost - it was perfectly feasible, really, for them to be there in 20 minutes. They would hear no end of it from his mother, but he was accostumed to the gentle ribbing.</p><p>"...Although...", Hermione said, bitting her lips and perusing him with her eyes, which were drawn over his figure particularly the way the jeans hugged his arse... "I can't say you don't look good on those clothes -"</p><p>Draco felt a pang in his heart, and pressure somewhere else. He was sure that his mother would disagree - she who had been raised with the idea of cerimonial robes and who insisted he wear them even to the family gatherings - But then his wife was the smart one, she had been the one who always had all the answers, and if she said he looked good in those clothes, who was he to disagree?</p><p>He was already late - but then being 20 minutes late or being a few hours late resulted in much the same outcome - a chidding by his mother and Draco had to admit - as he looked at the Hermione's gaze fell over his figure, he very much wouldn't mind being a bit late himself. If his clothes had to be swapped - he would not mind Hermione helped him change out of them.</p><p>Surely mum would understand right?</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And happy birthday to the friend to which I have gifted the fic to! Really she has been there to hear me moan, growl and complain and she always had a reassuring word or a way to make it seem like it'll all be ok. I could not think of a better friend. I hope you enjoy it!</p><p>And if you, the reader enjoyed it, why not leave a comment? I'd greatly appreciate it! </p><p>Thank you.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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